In the field of modular, plastic fences, easy, tool-free installation is preferred. However, systems allowing for easy installation tend to suffer from less-than-ideal stability, particularly at the point where a picket or rail is joined to a fence post. To combat that problem, prior systems have required installation of braces to fence posts, where the braces act to support pickets connected thereto. More recently, systems have been designed that incorporate channels within the sides of the fence post where the channels are designed to receive a portion of a picket therewithin. Such systems, however, have been overly complicated in design, limit the manner in which a picket or rail component may be connected to the fence post, and are designed in such a manner that either one fence post design cannot be used in different rail-to-rail configurations or the fence post falls short in aesthetic pleasantness when installed.
For example, several prior designs that incorporate channels have extensive internal workings, which limit the design and configuration of supports that may be inserted through the fence post when installed. Accordingly, these designs limit the structural support that may be added to the fence post during installation.
Other channel-including fence post designs allow a picket or rail to be installed into the channel of the fence post by sliding the picket or rail, as the case may be, only in a particular direction, such as vertically, from the top of the fence post toward the bottom of the fence post. This makes installation difficult in situations in which the fence is being installed underneath any kind of overhanging matter, such as when a fence is being installed beneath low-hanging branches of a tree. Further, vertically sliding pickets in place in this manner generates unwanted heat due to friction of the pickets contacting the surrounding channels. With the heat and excessive contact, the parts have a tendency to stick in place, making installation of the pickets uncomfortable and troublesome.
Further, prior channel-including fence post designs often sacrifice aesthetic pleasantness for the sake of uniformity. That is, fence posts are needed to support a variety of rail-to-rail (or picket-to-picket) configurations. For example, fence posts are needed both to support portions of fences in which rails and pickets on one side are in a 180 degree relation to the rails and pickets on the other side of the post and to support portions of fences in which rails and pickets on one side are in 90 degree relation to the rails and pickets on the other side of the post. Prior channel-including designs either required different configurations of fence posts depending on how the rails and pickets to be supported were to be aligned or required incorporation of channels on more sides of the fence post than may ultimately be necessary. Thus, someone installing a fence with a corner who wanted clean-looking fence post sides on the sides to which no rail or picket was to be attached would need one fence post with only two channels, each on 90-degree-related sides, and other fence posts with only two channels, each on 180-degree-related sides. Alternatively, someone installing a fence with a corner who wanted to use only one design of fence post would need to use a fence post having channels included on at least three sides such that once the fence was installed, at least one unused channel on each fence post would be visible.
Further, many prior channel-including fence post designs are limited in that the fence posts are not configured to be modified for connection of rails in different configurations after the post is already installed. Thus, to modify an installed fence assembly in which a channeled fence post is at a two-way rail intersection (i.e., where the fence post initially connects two rails in 90-degree relation) so that the fence post will be at a three-way rail intersection (i.e., where a third rail is added in 90-degree relation to one of the already-connected rails), either the fence post had to have included at least three channels at the time the post was first installed or a new three-channeled fence post must be installed in place of the original post. In the former case, the initially-unused channel has detracted from the aesthetic pleasantness of the fence post. In the latter case, the installer has had to incur the cost and trouble of acquiring and installing a new fence post.